CH 282

Chapter 282 – A Troublesome Unique Skill

“GYAAAH!!” (Duarte)

Duarte let out a pained groan, hinting that the attack had done some damage.

Naturally, the attack made him aware of Shiki’s presence, and he swung his machete in retaliation.

Shiki evaded with a quick backstep, then immediately dashed back in for another attack. But the lightning emitting from Duarte’s body suddenly intensified, becoming so powerful that it electrocuted Shiki and caused his entire body to turn stiff.

Duarte swung his machete again at the stiff, unmoving Shiki.

“T-This is nothing!” (Shiki)

As expected of an A-Rank monster like Shiki. Even while under the effects of the lightning, he was able to block the incoming machete with the blade of the [Soul Gauntlet].

But it wasn’t a good move. The closer he got to Duarte, the more he would suffer from the electric discharge.

Sure enough, the paralysis afflicting Shiki became even worse. The machete came down overhead.

Seeing Shiki getting cut into two, Oz let out a shriek.

But then, I spoke.

“Don’t worry. Shiki hasn’t been hit.” (Bouchi)

Oz let out an ‘eh?’ in response to my words, looking confused. Then, she looked at the bisected Shiki and understood.

Something had indeed been cut into two, but it was just a wooden log.

Shiki had used his substitution technique to escape the situation. Before Duarte even knew it, Shiki had already leapt above his head.

In that moment, Shiki leaned into the momentum of his fall and brought both of the blades of the gauntlet down on Duarte’s skull.

“GUUH…GYYAAAAH!!” (Duarte)

Duarte’s skeleton went stiff due to the massive damage, and the lightning discharge surrounding him weakened. I thought that Shiki might be able to defeat Duarte by himself, but just as that thought crossed my mind…

A gale swept up, wrapping Duarte up protectively and blowing Shiki away in the process.

“First lightning, and now wind?” (Bouchi)

“That’s the power of Captain’s skill.” (Oz)

“You did say he could use the power of the weather… Weather… Don’t tell me—!” (Bouchi)

Just as I started having a bad feeling about this, rain started to fall from the sky. The rain became heavier and heavier, until the downpour became more like a waterfall.

The surrounding winds also started to blow violently… turning the surroundings into the center of a terrible tempest.

The tremendous amount of rain made it difficult to see, and the gusting winds made it even harder to maintain our footing. Ior and Oz were holding onto me to keep from being swept away.

Shiki was half-crouched, keeping a low stance as he endured the weather’s onslaught. However, Duarte, who had caused this entire situation, was standing there completely unaffected.

“Kuuuh…! I want to cover Shiki, but an arrow won’t hit in this kind of wind!” (Yofel)

Yofel readied her bow, but in the end, it was impossible to shoot an arrow with winds this strong.

Duarte pointed his gun at Shiki and fired.

The bullet would have hit Shiki, but he was protected by a tree that had suddenly grown from out of the floor directly in front of him.

I knew exactly who had made their move.

“Nice, Ior!” (Bouchi)

“Yeah. I’ll be taking away his freedom to move, as we planned.” (Ior)

This time, thorny shrubs began to sprout around Duarte’s feet. Like this, he wouldn’t be able to make any moves.

Duarte couldn’t hide his confusion at the thorny vines that were suddenly restraining him, but he continued to struggle desperately.

As a result, the storm began to gradually subside, and we regained our ability to move freely.

“Now! Attack all at once!” (Bouchi)

At that moment, I dashed out from my hiding place.

Yofel fired an arrow from her position where she was protecting Ior. Shiki also charged out towards Duarte, just like me.

But Shiki seemed to suddenly notice something, and he picked me up and leapt away from that spot.

What in the world… or so I thought to myself, but for only a moment. A large object fell from the sky, landing right where I was just a moment ago and boring a hole in the ship.

“Wha…?” (Bouchi)

I looked up at the sky to see what had fallen from the sky and saw countless chunks of various sizes plummeting downwards.

“Is that… hail…?” (Bouchi)

Hail as I knew it was just little droplets of ice, but these were almost too large to be considered hail.

It was said that hailstones the size of pumpkins had fallen in Japan before. Naturally, a direct hit from a hailstone of that size would kill you immediately.

“These are way too biiiig!” (Bouchi)

The hailstones plummeting from the sky were all kinds of sizes, but they were all at least the size of a fist. It was truly a deadly rain.

Taking a direct hit from one of these hailstones would at least cause a concussion, if not worse. It was coming down over the area so heavily that it would be impossible to escape it without a roof.

There was that story about how he had repelled an imperial fleet all by himself, but now I saw how that was possible. If he could control the weather like this, it would be easy for him to make the ocean stormy or even destroy a ship altogether by bringing down a heavy wide-range hailstorm.

This is a unique skill, without a doubt. How troublesome…!

There was no way it could be anything other than a unique skill with this level of might and versatility.

Countless blocks of ice were raining down on me and Shiki. We had to defend ourselves somehow. But right at that moment, I saw multiple arrows flying through the air, shattering the hailstones as they came down.

I looked over and saw that Yofel was covering us by shooting arrows. But in the end, there were just too many hailstones. It was difficult for Yofel to handle all by herself.

Then, wood started to extend rapidly from the edges of the ship, forming a wooden dome roof above our head. Naturally, it repelled the incoming hailstones.

I looked over and shot an approving glance at Ior for his nice assist. I gave him a thumbs up, and he returned a peace sign. I also noticed Yofel breathing out a sigh of relief, so it might have been her who had told Ior to do this.

To buy time for Ior to activate his ability, Yofel had probably tried to deal with the hail on her own for a moment. As expected of the brother-sister duo. They worked well together.

A unique skill to counter a unique skill. We only managed to defend against this attack because we had Ior.

As my thoughts were focused on the ceiling protecting us overhead, Duarte broke free from his restraints and fired at us.